ESRB ratings promoted by Georgia Attorney General

The beleaguered ESRB software ratings system is getting official support from …

The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is gaining allies in its quest to inform the public about its game content ratings system. This week, the ESRB announced another campaign of public service announcements (PDF) in the state of Georgia. Unlike most efforts to date, this campaign will contain radio and TV ads, and it also has the backing of the state's Attorney General, Thurbert Baker.

In the announcement, Baker said that "while many parents are aware of the ratings, and are making sensible game purchase decisions as a result, more can and should be done. Working with ESRB, we hope that these ads will help arm parents with the information they need to make the right choices for their children and families."

Having high-level support like that of Mr. Baker might help legitimize the game ratings. Many parents either don't know or don't care about ESRB ratings, and it will take plenty of work to change that. Expect more announcements like this one in the near future. The Georgia campaign could have been inferred from notes on a Congressional hearing back in June (PDF), where Mr. Baker was one of many government officials noted to have teamed up with the ESRB to run campaigns to raise public awareness of the ratings. Others include the Attorney General of Utah, Puerto Rico's Secretary of Consumer Affairs, and the County Executive of Westchester County, New York.

Of course, this is but one more tactic in addition to several existing campaigns employed by the ESRB. There's the Commitment to Parents program that aims to make sure that stores don't sellPostal or Riana Rouge to rosy-cheeked little Timmy, and the long-running "OK to Play?" (PDF) series of PSAs about the ratings, mostly through print ads and brochures. Separate from that series is Penny Arcade's set of PSAs aimed directly at gamers rather than parents, and meant to raise interest and awareness of the importance of ratings among actual gamers.

The ratings system isn't perfect, but as a parent I can appreciate the need for some sort of guidelines on what's inside the box. I'll echo Gabe in saying that the ESRB isn't perfect but it's what we're stuck with, and certainly better than bad legislation. There's a federal law under discussion, but some think it's asking for impossible levels of due diligence from the ratings body, and if the track record of proposals on the state level is any indication, the federal rule looks likely to crash and burn.